Speaker 1: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask
what you can do for your country.
Speaker 2: Mister Gerba Schaw, tear down this wall.
Speaker 1: It's the Rickachet Podcast with Beltieven Hayward and myself James Lylyax.
Today I from down to Eli Lake about national and
Downmouth for democracy going away, and about Gaza, What's next
and Eli's next new project.
Speaker 3: So let's have ourselves a podcast in Washington. There is
a new sheriff in town and under Donald Trump's leadership,
we may disagree with your views, but we will fight
to defend your right to offer it in the public square.
Agree or disagree, and trust me. I say this with
all humor. If American a democracy can survive ten years
of Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months
of Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast, number seven and
twenty eight. If you keeping score, don't know why you would,
but if you are, then you know. This has been
a long, long, long series of podcasts that has spanned
human history as we've known it for the last decade
or so. And now we find ourselves at a peculiar
place where how do I put this? Well? We're missing
Charles CW. Cook. I know, I know, but don't despair.
He'll be back. He's just unavailable at the moment. But
you have Stephen Hayward and you have me James Lilacs
and Minneapolis, where we're due for some snow and apparently
the temperatures are going to go down into the negative
region again. We'll be waking up to eighteen below and
wondering why why why do we not sit in human
comfort where Stephen is today. Although I'm sure you're going
to tell me that it's a it's a bit rainy
or overcast or something like other California paradise version.
Speaker 4: No, I think what you need to know is that
fire season is finally over at month's slide season has
begun in Earnest and this week, so that that's our
two seasons.
Speaker 1: Ernest can in Ernest, California. That's up by Island Park,
isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right, Well, enjoy your mind slip knot slide nod. Here
we are facing another Well, you know, I think you
described it when we were chatting before as a barn
burner of a speech I'm imagining. JD. Vance wrote that
himself and I'm also imagining Kamala Harris writing as a
vice president, writing a speech that she would give to
European leaders, in which she would, of course advise them
to be unburdened what had gone before, except of course,
for the legacy of colonialism and slavery. You burdened that
you be curid eternally. And it would be full of
platitudes about working together in the shared mission and the
rest of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the same blobby
EU trends national talk that we've been hearing for a
long time. This Stephen was different.
Speaker 4: Yes, Well, I'm having flashbacks. Well, I'm thinking of the reaction.
I'm having flashbacks to the way Spiro agnew so angered
the media and the left. But I repeat myself. The
speech was to the annual Munich Security Conference, which is
a big deal for the international defense and foreign policy elite.
It generally goes unnoticed in America, but we take it
very seriously. I kept seeing excerpts of the speech on
Twitter this morning, and each one of them I kept saying, Wow,
he said what so he called out Germany for de industrializing,
and how.
Speaker 2: Foolish that was.
Speaker 1: He praised Flis stop right there, what has Germany done exactly?
Germany previously regarded as the economic powerhouse of Europe. They
have great industrial capacity in the rest of it. When
you say de industrializing, what does that mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well so well, look, I mean the simple answer
is they embraced, starting fifteen years ago or more, this
net zero climate change decarbonization madness. And they've spent over
a trillion euros, well trillion dollars on this and really
haven't achieved all that much. In fact, our emissions have
gone back up and they've started burning coal again to
keep the lights on. But their electricity prices have soared
so high that a lot of German manufacturing has cut back,
starting to move out of the country, are simply shut down,
and manufacturing employment has plummeted in Germany in the last
few years. And it's not just Germany. Britain has done
the same thing. Britain at zero policy has runous electrical
prices and speaking to my friends in Great Britain, they
have meters that tell them exactly what their bill is
right and the way that concentrates the mind on an
individual residential level.
Speaker 1: And people should say, well, that's good. They shouldn't be
They shouldn't be using energy. They should be wearing sweaters
and sitting inside and you know, using the extra tallow
for candles. No, that's that's not twenty first century civilization
as we as we envisioned it. So they have to
cut back and they don't, and so this means, of
course a loss of jobs, and this means less economic
ability to fund the generous welfare state. And then you
combine that with other social presures such as immigration and
the rest of it, and you have a recipe for
a country that is casting its eye right word it
shall we say, much to the horror of the people
who believe that it would be another rote installation of
a left wing center left wing government.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, now there's three or four other amazing highlights of
the speech. He singled out Poland as our best ally
in Europe on defense because they spend the most of
any European nation on their defense. That was his way
of shaming all the countries that aren't living up to
their obligations. He attacked Europe for censorship and for being
election de nihilists. In particularly, he mentioned, you know, they
canceled an election in Romania because the wrong party won
and then my favorite part of it was I forget
the context now, but the clip I saw on YouTube
and I'm trying to find it in the text is
when he said, I say this with all humor, but
if we Americans had to put up with ten years
of scolding from Greta Thunberg, you can put up with
a few months of Elon Musk. And he paused for
a moment, waiting for some even just the murmur of laughter,
dead stone signs from the audience. They did not want
to hear this, and so had some other things in there.
And I mean he may have written it himself. He's
perfectly capable of it. I think I know who might
have written a large part of the speech, but it's
just speculation on my part. But there's a new day
in town. And by the way, second big speech of
the week where Vance said of the Europeans, well, he
give a speech on artificial intelligence in Paris a few
days ago, and essentially his message was borrowing from Khrushchev
in nineteen fifty nine. Essentially he said, when it comes
to AI, we in America are going to bury you.
Speaker 2: So that was fun.
Speaker 1: Did he did he pound his loafer on the table,
no Gold do that.
Speaker 4: But back I did wonder though James, I thought, at
any minute now he's going to tear off his suit
and reveal his Captain America Superman crossover costume underneath.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, given how the latest Captain America movie
is doing, perhaps that's not a wise idea. But if
he did, you know, if you did morphit with Superman,
you would have a you would have a nice archetype.
Going back to Greta Sunburg, we hear he You know,
nobody wanted to hear that, and they all probably felt
a little bit of a personal sting because they've all
at some point had to genuflect towards the goal of
carbon zero net zero, and Greta Sundberg has been the
joan of hoisting that banner as she walks around Europe,
flies bikes, I don't know, scowling at every scowling at
everybody and shaming them, shaming them. The thing is is
the reaction that they have is that somehow, and we
hate to psycho analyze people rooted in shame because you know,
while I think that there may have been a few
true believers, I think a lot of people sort of
made themselves believe that this was necessary to do. It
was a high minded thing to do, It was a
saving humanity thing to do. And the fact that it
intersected with the opportunities for more government power and state control,
well that was just a happy little frosting on the cake.
And in their heart of hearts they knew that this
enterprise was a fool errand as long as China and
India pump out. But they thought, well, I'm doing a
virtuous thing. I will be regarded in the future as
a virtuous person. And so on we go, and with
less and less and less, I'll be able to fly
to Davos. But you guys probably are gonna have to
have some carbon credits at the end of it if
you want to take you know, you know, some cheap
jet down to Betha. Is that it? I mean, you
can't say. But shaming them from following this children's crusade
seems to me to be overdue.
Speaker 4: Oh well, absolutely. I mean I have three or four
field theories about this. One is I think the combination
of European guilt that goes back decades, not just German guilt,
The whole European continent has lost their confidence there. They
feel guilty about their past, right the culture repudiation is
Roger Scrutin used to call it, and they're sort of
weak minded. But then on the energy question, they're simply
illiterate about how energy works and they're unedggable.
Speaker 2: It seems.
Speaker 4: You can point out some basic facts about what's going
on and not going on and how it works, and
they're just impervious to common sense. They're not unique. That
describes the governor of California as well.
Speaker 1: You need to sit them all down and make them
watch a Billy Bob Thornton Landsman monologue is what you
need there. You don't need to send Jdvans over there,
send Tyler Sheridan over there to right.
Speaker 4: I guess it does tell you something about what's wrong
with I know, although that's an interesting cultural marker that
you see a Landsman come on like it has. I
do think that you know, it's this isn't really new,
but the Thunberg episode was really a you know, blow
the lid off. Time magazine, remember made her person of
the Year for five years back, and you know there's
a meme that goes around. It pops up regularly on
social media and elsewhere, and it shows Greta Thunberg about
how she's this world celebrity. And that shows Judith Curry
of Georgia Tech, a well renowned climate scientist, lots of publications,
ran the Department of Climate Science at Georgia Tech for
many years, but descents from the party line. She never
gets any publicity because of course she dissents from the
party line. And that shows you what's wrong with the
world that someone who really knows stuff gets ignored and
somebody who knows nothing has made a global celebrity.
Speaker 1: You know. Part of that we mentioned before, the civilizational
self loathing has played Europe. So they never got over
World War One because that completely deal legitimized the idea
of nationalism, and ever since then, and of course with
the unfortunate events that happened in the thirties and the forties,
that compounded the matter. So we have to dissolve all
of our cultural identities into this transnational entity we call
the EU, the Common Market, et cetera, et cetera. I
get that, I get that, but at the same time,
it's been one hundred and eleven years and it's kind
of like having a thirty something in your basement, moping
about the girl he broke up with in his first
year of college. We've been hearing this civilizational despair and
lack of self confidence for an awful long time. There's
a great deal for Europe to be proud of, and
there's a great deal of its culture from which you
can draw for hundreds of years in order to forge
an identity that they ought to be proud of. But
of course, the minute that you start to say that,
then people get very nervous, because then you're talking about
national identities and national identities or the whole problem. When
he singles up Poland, Poland and Hungary, which some people
may say is a less savory example, are privict examples
of European countries that are proud of what they are
and their folk ways and their language and their culture
and their food and whatever version of you know, meat
sausages they have. So yes, some spine would be nice,
Some spine would be nice. AI, how are we going
to bury them? What are they doing to cause them
to slide behind? On that one again?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the Europeans want to control it and
regulate it and censor it, and you know, they're worried
about you all kinds of things, and essentially Advance said
is we're for this industry. We're going to be the
tech leaders, and you know, if you want to be
left behind, that's up to you. So it wasn't it
wasn't quite the cruiseev we will bear you. I just
stylized it that way because I think they were shocked.
I mean, I know some European conservatives were worried about
AI and think there needs to be some kind of
regulatory regime, and I don't you know.
Speaker 1: What does that look like? Though? What does a regulatory
regime on AI look like?
Speaker 4: Well, it's some kind of censorship, I'm afraid, but censoring
what exactly.
Speaker 1: That's where this gets so vague. I understand when they
say that there you can have censorship regimes from the
government that control information on social media and the like,
and everybody loves that because we can't have people saying
anything on the internet. My god, people would believe it.
You know, if we've got to go out there and
send the little bots to crawl around to make sure
that nobody is talking about COVID is possibly coming from
a laboratory, came from a sick panglin in a wet market,
and if you say otherwise, then you've been banished to
the to the to the dead zone.
Speaker 4: Well, I think there are two things that you can
have legitimate worry about. One is that AI use as
you know, fancy algorithms to invade people's privacy. That's going
to happen anyway, because it's it's not just the things
for the Internet. The other one is, and I've worried
about this, is there might be some regulation of deep fakes.
Speaker 2: Right. I actually thought.
Speaker 4: On this last campaign there would be some deep fake
videos that would come out of you know, Triumph or
hair or whoever, and we might believe it for a day,
and that could be quite disruptive and we're going have
to figure out how to deal with that. But I
think censoring preemptively the use of artificial intelligence to create
visual content is very problematic for all the reasons that
I think you understand.
Speaker 1: That's true. But on the other hand, am I a
deep fake? Because if my cells replace themselves every signal,
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Qualitias Analytics. We're sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. And now
we welcome back Eli Lake, columnist for the Free Press,
contributing editor to commentary in the host of a brand
new podcast we're going to be talking about called Breaking History.
We'll find out whether or not that means that history
is sort of dtd D newsflash, or whether or not
he's being iconoclastic and smashing the old concepts. ELI welcome,
Thank you so much for having me. Well, we continue
to move at a great pace in Washington, DC. Breaking, smashing, disrupting,
I think is what somebody might call it. And the
judges are striking back and refusing to let things happen,
barreling towards a constitutional crisis. We're told, let's focus on
one recent thing. Checking my watch here to see if
they've abolished the Department of Educate. Nope, not yet. National
in domand for Democracy. Yeah, that's how I who would
be opposed to cutting the National Endowment for Democracy? You
got a piece up with the Free Press and you
argue the signals quite change in American foreign policy. So
refresh us, tell us what's going on. Well.
Speaker 5: The National Dominant for Democracy was created in nineteen eighty
three by President Reagan and allies in both parties in Congress,
and it's ours. It's an independent kind of foundation that
is not part of the executive branch. It makes small,
bespoke grants. In the nineteen eighties it helped let Well
Less of Solidarity and other Eastern European freedom fighters, and
today it helps all kinds of people in Iran and China.
There have been like all institutions and bad grants that
were made. It was one that was made to a
group called the Global Disinformation Index, which is you know,
I mean the entire anti disinformation industry we can all
say as a racket. And that got involved a really
dangerous thing with the state departments. I think it's called
the Global Information Center or something like that, and that
was really bad. But when you know, the president of
the NED who I interviewed, found out about the grant.
As soon as he found out about it, he ordered
a review, he severed ties with the organization, and he
has worked pretty diligently to make sure that the National
damage for Democracy does not not you know, funding these
kind of flim flam organizations that fight counter you know,
that fight disinformation or you know kind of this spoke
causes like environmental justice under the banner of democracy, which
I agree there is a kind of bloat in the
n GA NGO industrial complex. I think a lot of
that stuff is wasteful and stupid. But what any D
does is like they don't recruit people, they the people
come to us. It's basically like these are our real
allies into talitarian regimes and you don't have to be
like a full you know, you know, five star neo
conservative to you know, just say I think it's a
good idea for some US money to support the green
shoots of freedom in these places where there is no
political freedom. That used to be non controversial, but apparently
now we are hearing that it's you know, you know,
it's an interesting kind of contradiction or paradox of an
argument because Elon Musk is argument, they don't do anything,
they waste a lot of money, so it's too wasteful.
But then there's a kind of ideological momentum coming from
the magaverse that says that they're too effective. They're responsible
for color revolutions and regime change. I support the color revolutions,
by the way, that's a wonderful thing. But training you know,
nascent political parties an election law, or supporting kind of
independent media is not the same as orchestrating these kinds
of things. This is an expression of the desires of
the you know, people in these country where there were
these color revolutions.
Speaker 1: Okay, couple of points. One, there seems there's this idea
that if an organization was set up for a good
purpose under Reagan, that it is therefore destined to be
with us forever. That you can't get rid of it.
You just simply have to keep giving it the.
Speaker 2: Same I don't agree with that. I see we're saying, okay.
Speaker 1: And the second point is is that even though it's
funded with you could say it's funded to help like
well Lesson, we all loved him and we all supported solidarity.
And the rest of it is that inevitably any of
these organizations will drift left in time and expands its
mission so that you will find the money going to
you know, to environmental or gender based advocacy or the
rest of it.
Speaker 2: That's possible, It's certainly possible, but that's not ned right.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that that under a democratic administration that
it's more likely. The third thing would be is that
surely before nineteen eighty three we had means, and we
had we had means institutions subterfuge with the rest of it,
in which we could get resources to people in places
if we need, if we thought there was some good
skull dougre that needed to be done well.
Speaker 5: The CIA used to support political parties in post war
Europe right to make sure the Communists didn't take over,
and does that mean then that But that's not what
the NED does. It's like, this is there was one
quote that they keep taking out of context of somebody say, well,
the CIA used to do this, and now we do it,
and so that's just we're doing the CIA thing out
in the open or something. And I'm like, well, you know,
the CIA did a lot of things in that period,
very different than the National Endowment for Democracies. The National
Endowment for Democracies is a transparent organization that makes grants
to organizations that request funding. The CIA kind of would,
you know, by its nature, recruit people. That's a big difference.
Another big difference is that they have a grant making process.
They don't hand out bags of cash like you know,
Bill Colby in early nineteen fifties Italy. I mean, it's
not the same thing. More importantly, there isn't a wing
of the NED that all, so you know occasionally you know,
tries to assassinate foreign leaders or you know, is stealing
state secrets. It's like, the whole point is that this
is something that is non controversial in American support. It
is part of our political DNA. Going back to Thomas Paine,
who you know, went over to France to support the
French Revolution, the idea that we believe our founding principles
are universal and that other people, you know, deserve freedom
as well, is like, yeah, of course, but I have
to I want to challenge something that you said earlier,
because I'm not sure that if the same people that
are making these arguments today would have supported like Willessa,
I think they would have said, we're trying to do
regime change in communist Poland and it's going to lead
to World War three. That's the argument that I'm getting
because these people, and unfortunately there have been people involved
with the Heritage Foundations who have sort of made an
argument that the National Endowment for Democracy is to quote
blame interesting choice of words for the Orange Revolution and
the Maydaon Revolution in Ukraine as if a those are
a bad thing, which and b if it's true, which
is not true. The credit goes to the Ukrainian people,
and it completely just whitewashes it, airbrushes away the idea
that the Ukrainians might have a problem living under the
thumb of a pro Russian autocrat and I just want to.
I mean, like, and these people want to kick me
out of the conservative movement. I'm sorry, you're kicking yourselves
out of the conservative movement if you can't get your
head around the fact that we believe in certain things.
That that doesn't mean I want to, you know, I
want to hot war with Russia.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 5: But it's like the idea that Russia had no choice
because of the National Endowment of Democracy to launch a
brutal regime change war of conquest. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: No, that that's nonsense, and I want to put But
people are saying this nonsense I know, and they're welcome
to do so, and I can call it nonsense. I
am in I was in favor of like VELLSSA. I
was in favor of the revolution absolutely lately. Whether or
not would have you know, would have happened without us
is something we did debate. I'm not saying this because
I have a great dog in this fight, and I'm
I'm giving what I what I intuit people to say,
and I may or may not be correct about it.
I wouldn't would I be particularly bothered if the any
Day continued as an institution and was funded as it was,
and we went on and gave money to people who
came to us. I don't think it's the biggest problem
facing US today, but you are indicating that it represents
sort of a change in American foreign policy in the
way that we want the world to think of us,
not as somebody to whom you can come for assistance,
but an example you can get around following if you
can figure out on your own. And Steve means.
Speaker 5: I don't think that it should be kind of stark either,
or if you think in retrospect the war in Iraq
was a horrible blunder. That does not necessarily mean that
we should stop the ie we should stop supporting people
who want a free press in Iran. I mean you
can those are apples and oranges, those are mac trucks,
and you know raisins. It's not the same thing. Supporting
such groups is something that ay, the people who accept
the money are taking the risk. This is what they want.
Why wouldn't we want a foundation to necessarily support them? Now,
when you get into the sort of private foundations are
sort of related groups like the Surus's Open Society Institute,
that is an organization that started you could argue, you know,
did a lot of admirable things in the aftermath of
the Cold War in the nineteen nineties and has turned
into you know, a kind of giant, you know foundation
to support a bunch of really you know, pernicious progressive
causes like media matters and disinformation and censorship and all
kinds of things I don't like and you don't like,
and I don't think people listen to this like but
that's not the National Damage for Democracy. The National Dowind
for Democracy has a number of people on its board
that are Trump allies like Elis Sephonic or people involved
with their sister organizations like the International Republican Institute. Tom Cotton,
Marco Rubio was on the board. These are people who
basically are you know, Trump supporters and part of the
Trump movement. So the idea that they're you know, the
whole thing is bad because Victoria Newland is now on
the boarder an applebomb okay, fine, by the way, and
applebom was no longer on the board, and you know,
it's a conspiracy theory in a lot of ways, and
it's really unfortunate because I do think that it's important
even if it's relatively compared to the rest of the budget.
It's a small amount of money, but I do think
that it's valuable to support these and it's also valuable
for us in Washington because oftentimes I've found as a
journalist who wants to cover something in one of these countries,
the National En Dowad for Democracy usually has access to
the people who really know what's going on on the ground.
And I know that as a journalists that benefits me.
But I also know that people of the State Department,
you cannot get the same perspective of what's happening in
a country just by relying on the people whose staff
and embassy, who deal largely with other government officials. So
there is a benefit to this. And once you start
making the argument that this is part of a kind
of stealth regime change and that we are interfering in
the affairs of countries, that is where I just draw
the line. I think supporting people who don't want to
live under desk spots is a good thing, and I
just you know, I can't get my head around the
fact that there appears to be a lot of momentum
behind an element of the right that thinks that that is,
you know, part of the New World Order or something
like that.
Speaker 4: So Eli, it's Steve Hayward out in Burning, California. Which
we'll come back to what we talk about your podcast too.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I want to text our listeners to just go one
more round with you about the NED. Okay, and then
also I want I want to bring you in on
the latest on the Middle East, because you know way
more about that than I do. Look, a general observation,
then a couple points about NED and reformsgestion. The general
point is I think we have to understand that with
the shakunaw tactics of the Trump administration, they're going to
be indiscriminate about some of the things they cut and attack,
and they're going to make some mistakes. Okay, that said,
I remember you, by the way, I actually wrote about
this in my own book about Reagan. You know, the
NAD started with that one of his greatest speeches, the
Westminster Address in nineteen eighty two. And you also mentioned
something briefly a minute ago that's in your article that
there is two sub organizations, the Republican Institute and a
Democratic Institute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I actually did some work.
Speaker 4: For the Republican Institute back in the eighties when it
was all getting started, and.
Speaker 2: I was a huge fan of the whole effort.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, I've always been inclined to go
along with John O'Sullivan and Robert Conquest that all organizations
are not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.
I think that's what's part of what's went wrong with USAID,
which serves you right, okay, generally correct? Yes, yeah, okay.
So here's my reform suggestion. I'll accept all of your
defenses of what NED has done, but my reform suggestion
would be this, why do we have the Republican adjunct
and the Democratic adjunct? I think that represented the partisan
splits on foreign policy between the two parties. You know,
the Democrats in the eighties were very nervous about this
kind of thing for opposite reasons of the people on
the right who are opposed to it.
Speaker 5: The Democrats of the nineteen eighties sound a lot like
any magotypes today, not all megotypes, I should say, I was,
you know, the ones I'm arguing with on social media, right.
Speaker 2: Yep, understood that completely.
Speaker 4: My thought is maybe what we ought to do is
reconstitute the National Dowmage for democracies and simply let the
two parties go their own ways.
Speaker 2: I can see defense. So if the.
Speaker 4: Democrats want to support gender education in Pakistan, let them
and be transparent about it. And Republicans want to.
Speaker 2: Support like two gender only education, let's support that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, or you know, I mean, of course there's
the argument you raise, which you will skip over now
about you know, what kind of democratic efforts do you
want to support overseas? And I know there's people say none,
and okay, anyway, that's my reform suggestion is why don't
we just be more honest and direct about this.
Speaker 5: I'm open to that, and I agree like the broader
international NGO space is rife with nonsense and corruption.
Speaker 2: One that's a real problem, by the way, but it's
not also with the USAID.
Speaker 5: I remember when I was stationed in Egypt in two
thousand and five. In two thousand and six, I did
a piece about a kind of editor of an Egyptian
newspaper who had written a column about, you know, endorsing
this Kakamami David Irving view that the Holocaust was at
over state and everything like that. It was a kind
of typical fair. And what stood out to me is that,
you know, earlier in his career, this is two thousand
and five, so like in the early eighties, he'd gotten
a USAID grant to like learn journalism in America, and
I was thinking, like, oh, wow, you guys really know
how to pick them. So, you know, yeah, I yeah,
there's a lot of problems right now, and you know,
some of the things that we're learning about what USAID
supported is you know, shut it down. As far as
I'm concerned, I agree, although I'm sure there's plenty of
good things with USAID as well, and it can be
an important tool of US foreign policy.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like we're gonna have to we got to deal
with that O. Sullivan conquest problem, that's certainly true, and
we have to deal with a hyper radicalized Democratic Party
today that went had just got out of power, and
their fingerprints and tentacles are all over government and you
got to root it out.
Speaker 2: Agreed.
Speaker 5: I just think any D is the wrong target and
it is being and it is a target in part
because of a lot of just kind of you know,
I ill thought out conspiracy theories that have gained enormous
traction a lot of this is supported, by the way,
by people who would never you would never consider to
be conservative. It was like, this is a big hobby
horse for something known as the Gray Zone, which is
Max Blumenthal's site, which is basically is like the you know,
it's it's, it's it's the it's like a propaganda arm
of every anti American tyranny and terrorist group. So that's
what we're dealing with. And my point is like, is
that is that now going to be part of the
coalition Because I'm like largely see myself as somebody who
I have a lot of criticisms of Trump, but I
think he's much better than the alternative of a party
that weaponized the Justice Department against their political opponents, that
propped up a senile, incompetent old man and claimed he
was you know, sharp as attack.
Speaker 2: I mean, we can go through the list, so.
Speaker 5: Like you know, I'm I'm now like really hoping that
he gets it right. But I don't want to share
a Vauxhall with the Gray Zone or people who are
these kind of lunatic conspiracy theorists who you know, think
Apak is running everything. There's people shouldn't be in a
in a decent political coalition.
Speaker 1: But people in the center who who would agree with
you that the NED serves a function and ought to
be paired down and focused on that function are probably
at the end of the day. And I hate that phrase.
I'm very sorry going to say, well, let it go,
because to fight for it is to then get on
the other side of the barricades and say no, this
one actually has to stay, because I mean, right now,
the left, the progressives, the center left are at the
point where they have to defend USAID, and they have
to defend the waste in the treasury, and they have
defend all these things because they if they give up,
then they seed to the other side the idea that
there's lots of waste and stuff that they can pair
a waste. So they have to fight that. You have
to say, you can't cut USAID because it is because
there's an old woman in Thailand who is dependent upon
it for her oxygen and she will die. Oh she's
died already, I mean, so they got to fight that.
And if guys on the right say.
Speaker 6: As good as the NED is and has done some
good things, I'm not gonna that's not the foxhole in
which I'm going to expire because we need rotten branch
and if this is one of the good roots, will
then so be it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's what I think is gonna That's fine.
Speaker 5: I'm a journalist. My fidelity is to calling it like
I see it. So I understand if that's your view,
and you're a member of Congress and you want to
save your powder and keep your powder dry for the
fight that you think is going to be mattering more fine, okay,
I mean, okay, but at a certain point, I just
think you need to I wanted to put out because
I just see there is so much like wrong information
about the NED. They're fighting a kind of phantom and
I worry that if people like that have the ear
of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, then you know, what
else are they going to say? I mean, I'm kind
of you know, I'm not going to try it. I'm
trying not to freak out of things. But why would
we kind of before negotiations with Russia even begin, concede
everything that Russia would want, Like, I mean, just to
kind of give an example of what we saw this
week in Europe with with Defense Secretary hexath.
Speaker 4: So Eli, let's switch scars to the Middle East. And
you know, a minute ago, I use the imagery of
shock and awe that we've been using for thirty years
now since the First Gulf War when I look at
Trump in so many areas, but especially on the Middle East. Instead,
I want to shift to the big bang. I mean,
who would have ever thought that anybody, let alone a
president of the United States would say, you know, we
just ought to move everybody out to Gaza, to other
Arab countries and rebuild the place into something else. I mean,
and you know, utterly heedless of the predictable response that
he's calling for ethnic cleansing and other nonsense. But still
I can't imagine any other responsible politician ever suggesting such
a thing. What do you make of all that? And
I mean, is this a shaking up of things and
challenging the foundations of fifty years of settled attitudes? Is
this a good or a bad thing or somewhere in
the middle. How does Eli Lake size it up?
Speaker 5: I think it's a good thing to move the overturn
window on this. I don't think it's a I don't
think that it's necessarily I don't know that it'll happen.
But I think it's the the idea that before Trump
comes into office, the big plan was they'll be Saudi
Israeli normalization, but you're gonna have to make peace. And yeah,
it looks like God is going to have to be
still run by Hamas. Is totally unacceptable, and I really
do think at a certain point the message to the
Palestinian people has.
Speaker 2: To be this.
Speaker 5: Unless you start turning on these thugs and making it
clear that this is not how you want to live.
And some of this is they they rule buy fear,
and they rule buy you know, they will buy coercion.
So it's it's harder than said and done. But like,
you can't have the leadership of the Palestinian cause cannot
be people who aspire to genocide the state of Israel
full stop. And you know, obviously shame on on the
on the the rubs and moral idiots on campus who
consider Hamas to be a kind of freedom fighter or
resistance organization. But you can't. But you can't have like
just well, we'll work around it. And you know, the
leadership of the Palestinians is terrible right now, and it's
nonsense to think that there can be a state if
that leadership continues in perpetuity, and by suggesting maybe people leave,
which is what usually happens when there is a horrible
war that, by the way, was started by the Palestinian side.
Speaker 2: Of course, we know.
Speaker 5: That lots of popular there's five million, five million Ukrainians
are living in Europe right now. How many refugees came
from the Syria war. So the idea that there are
going to be refugees from a war because the place
is uninhabitable is not terribly controversial. Trump did say eventually
you can move back, but it's going to take a
long time to try to rebuild it. That to me
is like non controversial. And you know, I understand, I
know the history of this conflict very well. But remember
in two thousand and five Israel left Gaza and what
they got in exchange was Hamas. So the idea that
Israel really deeply wants to reoccupy Gaza, some Israelis probably do,
and they say that, but I don't think that that's
really that the game plan of the state is at
this point. I think it's just that you need to
have a strategy for you cannot have hamas in charge,
and that the propaganda play that we saw that prompted
these initial outrage from Trump and when he said, you know,
we're not going to take this much anymore from nearly
a week ago kind of proves the point those people
cannot remain full stop. I mean, I think the offer
should be bullet in the head or elba for hamas
I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a hawk on this matter.
Speaker 4: And as we are talking, we are twenty four hours
away from supposedly another round of hostage releases. It's not
clear how many, but I don't know. My opinion is,
and I'll just stake this and get your reaction. My
opinion is Israel needs to finish them off. The war
needs to resume.
Speaker 5: Well, Israel eventually does have to finish them off. But
if there is a way by floating this idea of like, well,
you're gonna have to take hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan,
other places like that, or you know, if that's if
that becomes part of the conversation, even if it's a
threat lurking in the background, then maybe you begin to
open up space. Because the main thing that has to
happen here is that the Kataris need to be told
that you've got to make a decision here and you
know you need to use your influence to get the
remaining hostages back and and to take care of the
leadership of AMAS. Yeah, and if you don't, we'll move
our base and you know what, we'll leave you well,
you know, we'll let the Iranians take care of you.
Speaker 4: Because that's really yeah, I'm sorry, I'm really glad you
said that. I mean, all the talk is always while
they're on you know, they're behind all this, that's all true.
But I've been saying exactly what you've said. We need
to lean hard on the Kataris, to step up their
game and be hat ourselves and threaten them.
Speaker 2: By the way, I thought the same thing you did.
Speaker 4: I thought maybe I was being crazy saying we threatened,
we pull out our military installations and other things and
punish them.
Speaker 2: And I'm all for that. Yeah, no, no, no, no, yeah,
threat threat, threat, And do.
Speaker 1: You think that do you think there's any consequence in
the long run to the world realizing that the countries
around the Palestinians don't want them. He just I mean, really,
I mean Jordan, who can can you know, look both
ways and say, you know, technically, you know, we're kind
of Palestinians. You know, we don't have room for anymore
in Egypt. No, we don't want them because they goes trouble.
I think the world would look at that and blink
a couple of times and then move right along to
blaming Israel for the continued existence of everything that befalls
the people in Gaza.
Speaker 5: Well, the only thing I would just say to the
counter that is that we saw into the first Trump
administration the expansion of the Abraham the Abraham Accords. So
at a moment when you know the elite opinions of
Europe and on our campuses and so forth, you know,
sounds an awful lot like what we might hear from
Black September. There is also this sort of realization in
the region itself that you know, this nearly century old
struggle to either prevent the birth of a Jewish date
or to destroy it has failed and we have to
move on. That I think has sort of sunk in
at least at the leadership level in the region. And
that's a good thing. So, I mean, I don't know
what to do about. But then then again, it's like,
I mean, you know, getting back to an earlier thing.
And this is a problem also of the corruption of
the international NGO complex, the United Nations and all these
sorts of things that they just are kind of committed
to this idea of propping up these these you know,
two bit genesider terrorists and amas.
Speaker 2: Screw them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, Eli, last subject for today, I want to
talk about your podcast a bit Breaking His Thank you.
By the way, your two latest episodes are really timely
for me. I'm teaching the presidency this semester, so your
episode and Andrew Jackson will be of great interest. And
of course I live in Burning, California. So so first
of all, I guess do this for listeners to get
a general flavor sort of what's your theory, what's your approach?
What does the breaking part of breaking history mean? Is
that the right question for too?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think I wrote an AI song called We've All
Been here Before, simply led mix eighties music fans will
get the reference, and that song chorus is I know
it seems we have no hope, we can't can't take
it anymore. But if you know our history, We've all
been here before. And the next versus America has been
on the brink of going straight to hell, the Civil
War and Watergate, the War of eighteen twelve.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the song.
Speaker 1: But that you rhymed Hell and twelve, I did you rhymed?
I'm going to write an AI version of cole Porter
to to to Find You. And this is why Europe,
there artistic Sensibilities, wants to censor and control AI because
because people will create songs anyway. Okay, I'm kidding you.
Speaker 5: A song it's good, I will hear, I'll But but
the point, the point I make is that usually we
are kind of, you know, captured to something historians called presentism,
which is we just think we are living through the
worst thing in the world and it's kind of remarkable.
And I've always been I love reading history, and I
approach history as a journalist. So I love not having
the obligation of being an historian because I know I'm not,
and I have great respect and admiration for people who
are trained historians. I don't claim to be one, but
I do claim that as somebody who reads a lot
of history and loves history, loves literature, and I approach
it as a journalist and I love to find new things.
So you know what I did with the sort of
episode on California Burning is I asked the question of like, well,
you know, it kind of reveals just how utterly incompetent
and desiccated the ruling you know, Mono Party of California,
the Democrats have been.
Speaker 2: Where did this start?
Speaker 5: And what I tell is the story of the nineteen
seventy five mayoral election in San Francisco, which proved that
you could have a coalition, as I say, you know,
learn to stop fighting the freaks and invited them into
city hall. And that's what happened because part of that
coalition included the Reverend Jim Jones of the People's Temple
and one of the worst sociopaths in the twentieth century.
And this is and because I don't want to give
too much away, but anyway, because of events, they never
really had a reckoning for this sort of radical tolerance.
And we see the and the people who survived that
era went on to become the powerbrokers of the state politics.
Speaker 2: In many ways.
Speaker 5: Diane Feinstein, Willie Brown, you know, and you know, San
Francisco is still in my view is that is the
big city that kind of really runs the state. In
a lot of ways, we see Gavin Newsom was the
mayor of San Francisco, Kamala Harris was mentored by Willie Brown.
So that's the That's the story that I tell and
I kind of, you know, I try to I don't.
Speaker 2: Tell it ideologically.
Speaker 5: I tell it more as a kind of this is
I try to give credit to like, you know, I
don't think that we should go back to an era
when the police could you know, arrest you know, two
gay men for holding hands or something like that. But
at the same time, there was a sense that I mean,
I see a real similarity, for example, in the police
chief that George Mosconi brings in who effectively kind of
legalizes prostitution by saying we're not going to enforce it anymore.
He did it with a district attorney that also won.
That reminds me very much of like the decisions of
gascoone in Los Angeles and Chessubodina say we're not going
to prosecute shoplifting, so you have a shoplifting epidemic, and
it's all I see it as a very California thing,
which is that the road to ruin is paved with
the most noble intentions, like we're trying to save an
indigenous milk veg weed, so we can't you know, clear
the forest road to build steel instead of wooden poles
for the electric lines. You know, we want to help
the homeless, and they're human beings too, and these unhoused
citizens have rights. Wonderful, but like, as you're doing all
of that, you're either allowing tense cities, which is what happened,
or you're spending gobs of money to hire caseworkers that
work for NGOs for the city, you know, at like
fifty sixty thousand dollars a year, where you can try
to give like motel rooms and set people up and
be life coaches for homeless people and vagrants. And what
I'm saying is that this is like an example of
a kind of very California mentality.
Speaker 4: Like well, right, well, you put your finger on something
that's bothered me for a long time as a native Californian.
It used to be that southern California LA dominated, or
at least competed with the Bay Area to dominate California politics.
But that's because you know, LA forty fifty years ago
you had Hollywood Aerospace and a lot of manufacturing.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: Now it only has Hollywood and Silicon Valley came. And now,
as you say, San Francisco dominates the state even though
the LA and Southern California population is bigger. And this
is an interesting, really interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 5: So my daughter, I'm watching my daughter. I'm single parenting. Everybody,
say hi to.
Speaker 1: Norah before we let you go, lean back a little
bit so I can see your your daughter absolutely on
what your T shirt is because you always have a
rock band T shirt. Here.
Speaker 2: This is not a rock bando. He is a rock
star theater.
Speaker 1: Oh right, oh there we go. Okay, well, you know,
I don't know, give him a heavy metal makeover or
something like that Jean Simmons co piece and h vidego.
Give him a heavy metal klezmer Ai version of the
song and uh and we will love to see it.
Speaker 2: Assignment assignment taking, good sir.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you understand the assignments you use. The cliche
that everybody is now using that I cannot wait for
it to die. Now. What we do want to live forever, however,
is your podcast and everybody.
Speaker 5: Well, let me just tell you. Can I can I
tell the listeners? Oh yes, Uh, next episode drops on Wednesday.
Who Shot John? The story of JFK conspiracy theorist. I'm
not a conspiracy theorist on this, but okay, so like
somebody is. But uh, but it's a it's a it's
a it's a great it's a great episode that looks
at sort of the evolution of the various conspiracy theories
into JFK, the fact that Trump is going to declassify
the final State secrets regarding JFK and everything else, and
you know, the role particularly played by a nineteen ninety
one film by Oliver Stone called JFK.
Speaker 1: Don't Get Me Started. I saw that at a Washington
premiere actually with Oliver Stone and Sam Donaldson. And afterwards
I'm in I'm in the men's room with Sam Donaldson
and Oliver Stone, you know, two alpha dogs in the
small kennel and wow. Yeah. And I couldn't say anything
to Stone because I thought it was all stalking nonsense,
but interestingly shot. And so we talked about the way
that the opening sequence goes from the four point three
aspect ratio of television and then there's the gun shot
and it opens up to wide screen sixteen to nine,
and how that is a nice transition, you know, a
nice little conversation. But I didn't want to say, Jim Garrison,
are you fret? So anyway, what I'm saying is.
Speaker 5: We play some great clips from Jim Garrison and we
get into his linacy.
Speaker 1: Yes, with all of the things that have been written
and said, including of course you know Posner and and
all the books that have exhaustively come down on.
Speaker 2: One side of Poser. We interviewed Poser.
Speaker 1: By the way, Posner is great and and vincent and
you know all that. So what I'm telling the audience is,
if Eli is giving you this take on one of
the most told stories of the twentieth century, you know,
he's got some interesting little thing that you haven't heard before,
or a way of putting it that you hadn't thought
about before. So listen breaking the strail of the podcast.
And people can find it on what particular network.
Speaker 5: Oh, it's well, it's a free press podcast, but you
can get it on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
We got it everywhere. It's a it's really great. I'm
very proud of the work and and thank you for
asking me about it.
Speaker 1: That's great. And we also appreciate the money that you
paid us to push the podcast. I just and I
will note that I cashed it immediately because it was
from the NED and I figured he they may not
be able to honor this anytime soon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, funny.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for joining us. We look forward to
talking to you again bybe all right.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the thing is we're talking before about how
somebody's got to do something something about the hamas leadership
and gutter and then the rest of it. Anyway, the
point that I trying to make was to segue into
a commercial, and this was like an opportunity long gone. Frankly,
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a few more minutes here, Yes you.
Speaker 4: Can, can I I mean, before you move on, can
I just say something about something nice about Sam Donald's
I mean, I can understand the order of being stuck
next to the Yearninal between him and Oliver Stone. And
I always used to rage at Sam Donaldson and I
watched him in the eighties on TV. But I may
have a worse circumstance.
Speaker 1: By the way.
Speaker 4: I was once stuck sitting next to Lannye Davis on
a coast to coast plane flight. He was, you know,
Clinton's White House Council. It was in two thousand and eight,
and he wouldn't shut up about how Obama was terrible
and Hillary Clinton was going to save the country. I
felt like that guy an airplane who commits suppuku having
to listen to Ted Striker go on and on. Right,
Here's the thing, Sam Donaldson, I got to meet a
few times privately and off the screen, and he turns
out to be a really nice guy. As partly was
an act, I mean, the sharp elbows of the press
corps in Washington. But and what enjeered me to him
finally was he brought up to me something that's always
been on my mind.
Speaker 2: One of Reagan's greatest moments.
Speaker 4: It was Donaldson in nineteen eighty two, with its full pomposity, saying,
mister President, you've blamed the deficits on the mistakes of
the past. You take any of the blame yourself. And Reagan,
in his usual way, said, well, yes, Sam, because after all,
for a long time I was a Democrat. And the
press from me erupted and you can find us on YouTube,
the press roomy erupts and laughter. And Donaldson said, Reagan
humiliated me many times, but that was his greatest humiliation.
And I thought, good for Sam anyway, Yeah, it's nice,
and I.
Speaker 1: Think he Yeah, I'm not sure we have his type anymore,
because you could disagree with what you took to be
a partisan shading the way he was saying things. But
there was something more to the man, you know, There
was there was life beyond politics, and you get the
feeling with a lot of today's resistance core in the
press that there is nothing beyond politics because nothing matters
more than saving the country from the existential threat to
our democracy that constitutes the current government. So yeah, there's that.
So there's a couple of things we could talk about
before we go out, and one of them, I suppose
is the penny. Trump says he's going to be We're
done with a penny. And I'm of two minds of this.
You know, you get rid of the penny, and immediately
everything is rounded up to a nickel or a dime.
And we all know that. And there is still something
in me that likes the fact that they're still trying
to fool me that an item that is two dollars
and forty nine cents is somehow cheaper than something it's
two fifty, which it is. But that little psychological nine
is such a part of twentieth century marketing technology, especially.
I don't know what they're gonna do with gasoline. Gasoline
is constantly moving by increments of pennies. What exactly do
you do about that round up? Round there? If you
round it up, does that mean that they get the money,
and they're obliged to get you know, all of the
individual gas stations are obliged to take that extra rounded
up money too. Something philanthropic with it. If they're supposed
to round down, are they supposed to take the hit?
I don't know. I kind of like the penny for
that reason, but I can't remember the last time that
I actually had one, because everything everything is is the
wave of the wave of the phone, the wave of
the wash, the wave of the card, and it's rare
that I come away with coins.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I'm well, I'm for keeping the penny,
I think for a bunch of reasons, but one of
them is it's the different color from the other coins.
I think getting rid of the penny would be an
implicit concession that we're going to have more inflation, right,
So the penny's kind of a nuisance for the reasons
you mentioned. I do know that maybe you probably know
this because your culture may have been that in World
War Two, when we were so short of copper, I
think it was nineteen forty three, we minted pennies out
of aluminum because we had lots of that, and maybe
what we ought to do because a penny apparently costs
more than one cent to make because of copper, and
is expensive, and we.
Speaker 2: Need it for all of our green energy.
Speaker 4: Forget that for the moment, but maybe we ought to
just reformulate the pennies so that it's made out of
an alloy, the same way we got rid of silver
quarters in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: Right the poor, for they were zinc pennies. I remember
the first time I saw one of those, I thought
I'd seen something from an alternate dimension that had leaked
into mind. It was amazing those things, and I have
a few of them. The fact that we are now
in a coinless era, or an era that no longer
really has one choose for them, I think is sad.
While I don't want to sound like an old fart saying, yeah,
your kids today, your watches, there is something comforting about
a pocket full of change. When I was in my twenties,
if you had a pocket full of quarters, you were
assured of many things. A couple of them and a
dime and a nickel would buy a pack of cigarettes.
One of them would get you an hour on a
parking meter. One of them would get you three games.
If you were good in a pinball machine. You could
save them up, and you could use them in the wandermant.
The pennies were exceptionally useful, and when you had a half,
half dollars would occasionally swim into view, but by then
they were working their way out of the system. Along
with a dollar. You didn't see a dollar. And the
quarter had a heartiness to it, and it had an
abiding quality because it had never changed. The way it looked.
Now you would have a dime, and sometimes you'd find
a liberty head dime, and that would be amazing. It'd
be worn down like a buffalo nickel, also worn down,
and you could almost sense the weight and the passage
and the length of history by looking at this thing
and wondering how many pockets and hands and drawers that
it clattered through. But that said, you know, nowadays our currency,
the quarter, is simply this vehicle for endless tinkering and revision.
Let's make all fifty states and people will collect them
and never spend them. Let's slap somebody on who hasn't
had a coin. Let's make it gold. Let's do this,
and it just has no place in the modern imagination
as it did before, except when it's clattering out of
a Vegas machine into a bucket. So and even then
people are using cards and slapping in cards and slapping
in cards and slapping I hate to be, you know,
an old coot about these things, but I'm I guess
if I have to all defend the quarter against all
critics and comers, and if that means I have to
make common cause with the penny advocates, then I will
do just that. Well, that brings us to the top
of the hour, and that brings us to the end
of the show. Because, unlike some people who just have
absolutely no care as to how long they ramble and bladder.
Even though Steven, I know that we could go another
fifteen twenty minutes, an hour is a good time to
say we are done, like we were a network, like
we were the Ed Sullivan Show, you know, or you
know some network program. You hear the sound in the
back of your head, the toll at the top, hit
the post, get out, Let people get on with their lives.
Of course, I've just made it an hour and a
minute by going through all that. We thank our sponsors
Quality of SANDIELYTX and hr Bamboo, support them and you
support us, We hope you give us a good review
wherever you happen to give good podcast reviews. And we
want you to go, of course, to ricochet dot com,
where the member feed is available for a very small
amount of quarters, and it will introduce you to a sane,
center right, civil world that you've been looking for on
the internet ever since you plug the damn thing in Stephen.
It's great. I'm James Linax. This has been the Ricochet
Podcast seven hundred and twenty eight and we'll see everybody
in the comments at Ricochet four point zero. Ricochet, Yeah,
join the conversation.